Bundled Payments Tied to Reduced Spending With Less Skilled Nursing Utilization
Medscape July 16, 2020
(Reuters Health) – Medicare bundled payments for acute myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and pneumonia are associated with reduced spending and less use of skilled nursing, a U.S. study suggests.
Researchers examined Medicare claims data for these four conditions at 226 hospitals that participated in Medicare’s bundled payments for care (BCPI) initiative and 700 hospitals that didn’t participate. They compared per-episode spending and 90-day mortality for a baseline period from January 2011 to September 2013 and a treatment period from October 2013 to December 2016.
For BCPI hospitals, the analysis included 261,163 episodes of care in the baseline period and 93,562 in the treatment period; it also included 211,208 episodes in the baseline period and 78,643...